The Free Press
It’s Wednesday, March 19. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Can the GOP maintain its newfound popularity? Coach George Raveling on how to win every day. Trump goes to war with the judiciary. A French politician wants Lady Liberty back. And more.
But first: The illegal immigrants who live the American Dream.
Since Trump’s inauguration, ICE has arrested over 32,000 illegal immigrants in the United States. The scale of the arrests is so vast that the Department of Homeland Security has struggled to find enough places to hold them. Detention centers are at capacity, and plans to transfer certain migrants to countries like El Salvador have run into legal issues. Meanwhile, the president’s plans for mass deportation have faced a backlash from activists, including some in Los Angeles who have recently ditched their picket signs for two-way radios, operating in concert to identify undercover ICE agents on the prowl for potential deportees.
Still, recent polling shows the president’s hard-line immigration policies are wildly popular with his Republican base. That base includes men like Herman, 43, who runs two mechanic shops and a café in Gaines County, Texas, population 7,000. Who could possibly be surprised to learn that a white, middle-aged, Protestant, small-business owner from West Texas supports Donald Trump?
We were. Because as it turns out, Herman is an illegal immigrant. He was born in Bolivia.
Today in The Free Press, Carrie McKean visits Seminole, Texas, where she documents the improbable but undeniable Trump support in this undocumented immigrant Mennonite community. Many of them even like his promise to shut down the border and deport illegal immigrants. Many of the Mennonites believe that the lack of strict border enforcement during the Biden administration put illegal immigrants like themselves—long-established taxpayers—at a disadvantage. Plus, despite Trump’s promises of mass deportations, many are skeptical.
“You say you want to deport us all?” one said. “Go ahead; you’d be up shit’s creek without a paddle.”
Read: “The Illegal Immigrants Who Love Trump.”
Welcome to Red America
A recent NBC poll found that Republicans outnumber Democrats, 45 percent to 41 percent. It’s a level of support the party hasn’t seen in more than 30 years. What’s more, a recent study by respected data scientist David Shor concluded that if all registered voters had turned out on Election Day, Trump would have taken the popular vote by an astounding five points, instead of the 1.7 percent by which he won. The question is: Can the Republicans hold on to their current popularity?
Today in The Free Press, Matthew Continetti looks at the waxing and waning history of party identification. Over the course of history, Republicans and Democrats have gained and lost support on a seemingly cyclical basis. Continetti argues that if Trump wants to break the cycle, he’ll have to do more than coast on the current goodwill of voters. If he succeeds, Matthew writes, he has the chance to do something “no other president of his party has accomplished in a century: turning a fleeting Republican moment into an enduring Republican era.”
Read “This Is a Republican Moment. Can Trump Seize It?”
Wokeness Was Cheap
Carbon credits, racially tense HR sessions, Jenna from accounting is nonbinary now and we need to have a meeting about it. For years, “wokeness” prevailed in corporate America. Now, that’s changing.
As Russ Greene points out today in The Free Press, spending on DEI programs and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives have all dropped. But this isn’t just a Trump phenomenon—it’s an economic one, fueled by the end of zero interest rates.
“When money is free,” Greene writes, “crazy ideas get funded. When money has a price, funders and investors want to see a direct link to value.”
Read: “How Easy Money Bred Bad Ideas.”
WATCH: They Fled Iran Fearing Death. Then the U.S. Deported Them to Panama.
Since its inception, the United States has served as a safe harbor for religious minorities fleeing persecution. But when Artemis Ghasemzadeh, an Iranian Christian convert, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, she said she was shackled, put on a military plane, and flown to Panama.
Today, The Free Press speaks to Iranian Christians for whom the prospect of persecution in Iran is very real: The punishment for Iranians who convert from Islam to any other religion is death. Yet Artemis and other Iranian Christians who traveled to the southern border say they were denied their legal right to seek asylum in the United States, and are now marooned in Panama.
Watch the video and read the companion essay here.
He Helped Michael Jordan Win—and He Can Help You, Too
Born in segregated Washington, D.C., in 1937, George Raveling was orphaned at 13. A basketball scholarship took him to Villanova University, where, after he graduated, he worked hard to bring black talent to northern universities to play basketball. An outspoken supporter of civil rights, Raveling volunteered to provide security for Martin Luther King Jr. during his “I Have a Dream” speech, and Dr. King gave him the original typewritten copy of the speech as a souvenir. He later became a coach at Washington State University, the University of Iowa, and the University of Southern California. He’s also been an Olympic coach, a mentor to Michael Jordan, a Fox Sports color commentator, and a millionaire. And now, he’s a published author.
Today in The Free Press, we have an exclusive excerpt from George Raveling’s new book, What You’re Made For, with an introduction by his friend, Ryan Holiday. This isn’t just an essay about winning at basketball; it’s about winning the day, every day.
Labeling federal judge James Boasberg a “radical left lunatic,” Trump called for his impeachment yesterday after the Obama appointee issued a temporary restraining order against the administration for its invocation of a wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador. Trump’s outburst caused Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a statement rebuking the president and his allies for calling to impeach judges who rule against the administration. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose,” he wrote in part. But soon after, Texas GOP congressman Brandon Gill announced he had introduced articles of impeachment against Judge Boasberg anyway.
Boasberg isn’t the only judge giving the Trump administration a tough time these days. Yesterday, another federal judge, Theodore Chuang, ruled that Elon Musk’s DOGE committee likely violated the Constitution when it effectively shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In his ruling, Chuang said he didn’t buy the administration’s claim that Elon Musk was merely an adviser. The evidence suggests that “Musk made the decisions to shut down USAID’s headquarters and website even though he lacked the authority to make that decision.” The judge ordered DOGE to reinstate access to payments, emails, and other electronic systems for current USAID employees and contractors. He also blocked DOGE from taking any more steps to shutter the agency.
Trump and Putin held a call yesterday to discuss a potential ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. The White House said “Both leaders agreed this conflict needs to end with lasting peace.” The Kremlin said Putin “supported” Trump’s idea for a 30-day halt on attacking energy infrastructure in both countries, but did not commit to the broader 30-day truce accepted by Ukraine last week. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that his “skepticism” of a peace deal following Tuesday’s developments remained but added, “if there is a partial ceasefire, this is a positive result.”
Israeli air strikes killed more than 400 people yesterday in Gaza, according to Hamas. The strikes are a brutal end to nearly two months of relative peace between the Jewish state and the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave. Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of breaching the U.S.-brokered truce that began in January. Israel has warned that yesterday’s bombings are “just the beginning.”
Five Teslas were damaged after someone lobbed Molotov cocktails at a dealership in Las Vegas yesterday. Local police have called the incident a “targeted attack,” and the unknown suspect, who was wearing black clothing, also spray-painted the word RESIST on the doors of the facility and fired a gun at several vehicles. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is assisting with the investigation. Vandalism against Tesla cars, dealerships, and charging stations has become increasingly common as the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, takes on an increasingly large and controversial role in the Trump administration. The Vegas attack comes just two days after the launch of a site that claims to have doxxed Tesla owners across the country, plus Tesla dealerships and members of DOGE. In other Tesla news, the stock dropped 5 percent on Tuesday, and is down 53 percent since mid-December.
Yesterday, Trump made good on a campaign promise to release tens of thousands of previously classified JFK files. The release of the Kennedy files comes after a controversial attempt to release information related to the investigation into late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—most of the revealed information had been publicly known for years. So did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? Was the CIA behind it the whole time? The mob? Communists? Julie Andrews, for some reason? Read through the 80,000 documents and let us know.
A pair of astronauts who have been stranded in space for more than nine months returned to Earth today on a SpaceX Dragon craft. After they landed in the water near Tallahassee, they were greeted by a pod of friendly dolphins. Watch the adorable video here, and, what the hell, let’s send one of our cetacean comrades up there!
The Statue of Liberty: We know her, we love her, we once waved to her on a boat while successfully lighting a cigarette for Nellie Bowles in 45 mile per hour winds. (Okay, maybe that was just me.) Either way, Lady Liberty is our big green gal, a national treasure, and now, one French politician is facetiously demanding we send her back for siding with “tyrants. . . who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom.” I’m not sure what that’s a reference to, but it breaks my heart to see France, once a great nation of libertine alcoholics, reduced to such petty scolding. I say if the French want Lady Liberty back, they’re gonna need to return some things that belong to us, like KFC, blue jeans, or Roman Polanski in a pair of handcuffs.
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CORRECTION: A previous version of The Front Page stated that Herman—quoted in Carrie McKean’s piece, “The Illegal Immigrants Who Love Trump”—was Mexican. In fact, he was born in Bolivia. This has been updated. The Free Press regrets the error.
An item on the war in Gaza has been clarified to reflect the source of casualty figures.
It's amazing that a few years ago our Constitution didn't protect we the people from being fired (from both private sector and public sector jobs) for not taking an experimental vaccine.
But now all of the sudden according to leftist judges it DEFINITELY protects non-citizen legal residents and illegal aliens from being deported. Huh?
you do not know how many people were killed in gaza by the airstrike!!!!! if you are quoting some source please refer to them as we know information has been very inaccurate(surprise surprise) that comes from the Gazan Palestinians....where is your journalistic integrity???